Te Papa is an absolute treasure;  one of the best museums I have ever seen.

[At the entrance to Te Papa there is a polite request prohibiting photography.  I respected this request, so no pictures by me.  Most of the images on this page are from the Te Papa website. I hope they don't mind.  It's not like I'm selling t-shirts or anything.]  
 
 
What is particularly notable about this museum is the fact that it follows a new line of thinking for museum design and management. I know absolutely nothing about museum management, but Te Papa is definitely something different. One way of characterizing Te Papa is to describe what it is not. It is not  a museum that follows the old model of how a museum should look and act.

Museums in the old model consist of gallery after gallery filled with glass cases. Inside these glass cases are a number of various little objects, each of which has little numbered tag next to it. Somewhere inside the case is a small card with corresponding numbers and a small written description of whatever the object is. Usually, there are five or 10 versions of a given class of object. As an instructive tool, these exhibits are next to useless. They are dry and boring. Nobody wants to stand in front of a piece of glass, and look at 10 stones, all of which look to be about the same.

The information provided along with the exhibits is near usually next to useless as well. You might have a number, a catalog ID number, and perhaps the word or two of description. 

To Papa throws this conventional wisdom out on its ear.

Instead of 10 arrowheads, stones, or whatever, there is one. Along with this one stone, there is a fair amount of explanation as to what it is, and why it's important. In the old museum you'd walk past the glass case filled with 10 or 15 arrowheads, take a glance, and then move on. In Te Papa you would stop, look at the one stone, read about it, and carry on having learned something.

When I originally arrived in Wellington, I thought perhaps I would spend one afternoon it Te Papa, and then move on to see other things in the city. How naive of me to harbour such preconceptions.  The museum is absolutely immense. I soon realized that the best way to approach it would be just to go in and see an exhibit or two, over about two three hours, and then see something else for the rest of the day. There's so much inside the museum, that there is no way you'd be able to see everything in one day. Furthermore, after about two hours, you really do get burned out on the museum experience. You just stop absorbing and learning.

 
And learning is the purpose of the a museum, isn't it?   I learned sooooo much from each exhibit in that place. 
 
 
A common theme in what I saw in Te Papa was the issue of national identity.  Te Papa's nickname is 'our place'.  While almost every capital city in the world boasts some sort of 'national gallery', Te Papa is something more than a building filled with NZ stuff.  Many of the exhibits I saw had common elements of:
  1. Here's what makes us unique, as a people and geographically
  2. Here's where we came from
  3. Here's why we are who we are

As a foreign visitor, I saw a country that for so long had seen itself as just another part of the Commonwealth.  One Kiwi once told me, "Thirty years ago, if you asked a New Zealander what he was, he would say, 'British.  We might down here in the South Pacific, but our allegiance is the the Queen, up in London.'  It's only recently that we've started to develop our own sense of identity as New Zealanders. "  Te Papa is a manifestation of Kiwis' efforts to define themselves as Kiwis, and not just as an outpost of another country. 

One nice component of the presentations inside Te Papa is that they say, "here's ONE part of our history / identity."  There is an implicit recognition that New Zealand is an amalgam of various cultures and histories, and very different ones at that (Primarily British  and Maori/South Pacific).  The presentations don't dictate, "This (Britain and your Sovereign, The Queen) and only this constitutes your history."   I suspect this latter approach characterises the manner in which New Zealanders were instructed about their cultural identity.   By the British.

 
Here's what makes us unique, as a people and geographically: Made in New Zealand: Ko au te whenua, te whenua ko au Stories of art and identity
 
Awesome Forces (about the geology of NZ- the intersection of tectonic plates, & the resultant earthquakes and volcanoes)
 
On the Sheep's Back
 
Here's where we came from: Qui Tutto Bene: The Italians in New Zealand (who know the Italians emigrated to NZ?)
 
Mana Pasifika (Pacific Island immigration)
 
Mana Whenua (Maori Immigration)
 
Passports (Immigration from other countries)
 
Here's why we are who we are: Signs of a Nation (the big one)
 
 
 
 
Great Stuff:
New Zealand in Bloom: The commercial art of Bernard Roundhill Bernard Roundhill created the artwork for these seed packets, in addition to other commercial art ventures.  I did not find a whole lot about him on the internet, so not much in the way of off-site links to his work.  But the exhibit was a superbly orchestrated presentation of his life's work. 
 
Signs of a Nation | Ngā Tohu Kotahitanga As a visitor to NZ, I saw many references to the Treaty of Waitangi.  It's so ingrained in NZ culture that everyone knows what it is, so there's little out there in the mass media to explain it.  An analogy for an American would be 'Boston Tea Party'  - everyone knows the event, so the phrase becomes part of the common vocabulary.  This exhibit presented the Treaty, the events leading to its signing, and the events since.   The physical layout of the exhibit is a perfect example of how Te Papa has abandoned the old stuffy paradigm of museum design.   It's a corridor, broad at one end, tapering to a narrow enclosed space at the other end,  One wall of the corridor tells the history of the Treaty from the British/Pakeha standpoint.  The other wall of the corridor tells the history of the Treaty from the Maori standpoint.  The narrative proceeds chronologically.  You can read about an event as told by Maori, then cross the corridor and read about the same event as told by Pakeha.   It's so clear that an immense amount of effort went into navigating this minefield so that both sides received a fair hearing.   The end of the corridor is dedicated to presenting several instances of the Waitangi Tribunal Claims, again presenting the story from both sides, and then the resolution. 

The Marae | Te Marae

 The Marae is a brilliantly executed interior space.  Normally a Marae is outdoors.  But I think the heavy winds at the Wellington Harbour led to the placement of the Marae indoors.  There is a meeting house
 

  with some really fantastic woodwork.  I was a little nonplussed by the artist's decision to use medium-density-fibreboard (chipboard, particle board) for his carvings.   There was a quote from the artist along the lines of, "If you make a mistake, no worries, just start out with a new one."  Seems to me that you should not make a mistake in the first place.  But, reality is reality, and accidents happen. So perhaps it's better that MDF is used instead of timber, thereby reducing the number trees felled.  I don't know.  I'm not an artist, nor am I Maori.   It was just a bit odd.